


careless through the thorns

by perfectlyrose



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon Compliant, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Past Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Pining, Pining Keith (Voltron), Pining Shiro (Voltron), Romance, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Starcrossed: Sheith Soulmate Zine 2020, a hint of, set from prekerb through s2 (across the universe)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 07:55:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23967985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perfectlyrose/pseuds/perfectlyrose
Summary: The first time Keith feels a flower bloom on the vines that snake up his spine and over his shoulders to curl around his chest he’s out in the desert with Shiro, a summer sunset lighting the sky on fire. Shiro carelessly throws an arm over Keith’s shoulders, leaning into him for a second as he points out a shape he sees in the plateau silhouettes, and Keith thinks oh as he feels warmth bloom under the weight of Shiro’s palm.Everyone is born with a vine living under their skin, a living tattoo that matches that of their soulmate and will bloom as love does, flowers growing along with feelings. The flowers on Keith's skin bloom long before Kerberos and pilot error. It takes being stranded together for Shiro to start catching up.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 33
Kudos: 290
Collections: Star-Crossed: Sheith Soulmate Zine 2020





	careless through the thorns

**Author's Note:**

> my piece from the Star-Crossed sheith soulmate zine!! I'm so honored to have been a part of this zine and super excited to finally be able to share this piece with the world!!
> 
> [check out the gorgeous art SueMaryRakocy did as well!!](https://twitter.com/SueMaryRakocy/status/1256708667342229504?s=20)

The first time Keith feels a flower bloom on the vines that snake up his spine and over his shoulders to curl around his chest he’s out in the desert with Shiro, a summer sunset lighting the sky on fire. Shiro carelessly throws an arm over Keith’s shoulders, leaning into him for a second as he points out a shape he sees in the plateau silhouettes, and Keith thinks  _ oh _ as he feels warmth bloom under the weight of Shiro’s palm.

It’s not entirely a surprise; buds had started appearing on the thorny vines that were Keith’s soulmarks within weeks of arriving at the Garrison. It started with small leaves, silver-green and tentative as they pushed out from the stem, like his soulvine was finally being given the care and attention to grow and thrive instead of just survive. Then tiny buds, tightly furled, started to appear.

All the while, Shiro kept aiming warm, genuine smiles at Keith. Kept checking up on him and making time for him and being generally wonderful. It wasn’t hard to figure out who his soulvines were reacting to.

But out here in the desert, with Shiro’s hand resting right over where a bud had appeared three days ago when Shiro had sat across from him at lunch and chattered excitedly about sim runs and the plane he was taking out for a test flight next week, Keith feels the bud burst open and it’s all he can do to not react, to laugh at Shiro’s dumb joke and not strip off his jacket and push his shirt aside to finally see what the flower looks like.

Instead he shoves at Shiro and challenges him to a race back to campus. Shiro’s grin is a lightning strike to the heart and Keith has to turn away before it shows on his face. Shiro might be his soulmate, might make flowers bloom on his skin, but Keith doesn’t have the same effect on him.

Back in his dorm room, in the single that Shiro had swung for him, he pulls off his layers and stares at the purple now painted across his skin. It’s a dusky shade, like a desert twilight, with some of the pointed petals coming in a more vibrant purple. It reminds him of a lotus, but with smaller and more numerous petals.

Keith can’t help but wonder what it would be like to see a matching bloom on Shiro’s skin, to know that they match. Everyone knows that Shiro and Adam have been together for years, though. They both keep their vines and flowers meticulously covered, but they’re the darlings of the Garrison, the couple so many aspire to be.

So Keith might wear his love for Shiro on his skin, but he never expects it to be returned. His vines squeeze around his ribs, a physical manifestation of his anxiety, of his heartache.

*

As the months crawl by, Keith becomes accustomed to the feeling of flowers blooming under the stiff sleeves of his cadet uniform. He just prays that his soulvines and the purple blooms that adorn them don’t peek out from his cuffs or collar.

The Kerberos launch looms closer and Shiro and Adam shock the campus with their breakup. Keith still doesn’t tell Shiro about the flowers on his skin, even when Shiro tipsily confesses that he and Adam had never been soulmates. Their vines didn’t even match and neither of them had ever grown so much of a bud for each other, no matter how much they loved each other.

The  _ Persephone  _ launches and the flower that bloomed on his shoulder blade when Shiro hugged him goodbye  _ burns _ .

*

The mission is lost. Pilot error is the story the Garrison is selling, the death of the entire crew is the story, but Keith isn’t buying it. Not when the purple flowers that dot his back, his ribs, his shoulders, have faded slightly but haven’t  _ died _ . They haven’t withered.

Shiro isn’t dead and Keith has the proof, even if no one will listen to him.

The vines wrap tight around his chest and he blames his inability to breathe on that instead of his grief and anger.

The bud over his heart stays alive, even if its petals are still stubbornly closed.

*

Shiro returns and when Keith rests a hand on his shoulder, outside his shack as Shiro feels the Earth’s sun for the first time in over a year, he feels a flower bloom on his forearm, beneath the smooth leather of his jacket instead of his scratchy uniform.

He smiles at his best friend, the love of his life, and says nothing about it.

*

Shiro twists his arm, staring at the thorny vine adorned with small purple buds wrapping around it. Alone in his room on the Castle of Lions, his vines have crept down his arm and into view, unwinding from where they wrap around his chest during the day when he’s worried about leading his team; about the war they’ve found themselves on the front lines of.

The small silver-green leaves and the tiniest of buds had started appearing a year before the launch of the Kerberos mission. He and Adam were already starting to fray at the seams, pulled apart by the stress of differing dreams, of the escalating symptoms of Shiro’s disease, when the leaves started to unfurl, announcing that Shiro had met his soulmate. It came up in their fights constantly, even though Shiro had no clue who his soulmate was, even though it had no bearing on how much he loved Adam.

The buds continued to crop up, all the way up until he launched into space. Shiro never figured out who they connected him to, has no idea who his soulmate is or if they’ve given up on ever finding him now that, presumably, buds have stopped forming for them.

He watches his soulvines twine around the scars on his arm. Shiro presses metal fingers against one of the buds before swallowing hard and looking away. He tugs on a shirt so he doesn’t have to look at any of the marks scattered on his skin.

Shiro pushes it all out of his mind and goes to find Keith, hoping that he’ll still be up and willing to help him exhaust himself on the training deck. At least if he’s going to be stuck in space for a second time, he has his best friend with him this time, Shiro thinks.

He doesn’t notice the sensation of a new bud forming half a varga later as they race each other around the track they find, egging each other on and laughing like the weight of the universe isn’t on their shoulders.

*

It only feels natural to gravitate towards Keith as weeks drag into months. Shiro doesn’t really know the other three paladins and Allura and Coran seem a unit unto themselves. Keith knows Shiro; there’s no pressure to be the leader and Black Paladin or the Garrison’s golden child around him. Keith’s never much bought into all the masks and titles Shiro’s worn anyways.

Sometimes, when they find themselves hanging out in one of the common rooms without the others, Shiro wonders about Keith’s vines, about what they might look like and what they could reveal about whoever Keith’s soulmate is. The others sometimes talk about their vines but Keith’s always been tightlipped and meticulous about keeping his soulvines covered — long sleeves and high collars on his uniforms and the red jacket he loves so much keeping most of his skin covered.

He tries not to let it sting that it’s one of the few walls Keith keeps up around Shiro. After all, he’s never let Keith see his, or mentioned them outside of that one time post-breakup where he’d confided to Keith that his and Adam’s vines never even resembled one anothers. 

These days, Shiro doesn’t think much about his own soulvines, doesn’t check them for new or fading buds since that would mean thinking about his earth-bound soulmate and confronting the trauma written on his body. Plus, he doesn’t have the space to think about soulmates and the way his eyes catch on Keith and his soft mouth and sharp angles. There’s a war to fight.

But sometimes, all there is to do in a war is wait. 

Shiro is rattled from a fall from atmosphere and the wound from Zarkon’s witch is pulsing pain through his body and all he can do is wait for Keith to come find him or the creatures outside to find a way in and finish him off.

It’d probably be a mercy at this point.

Keith’s voice is in his ear, though, promising that he’s on his way even if it’s obvious he’s run into some sort of obstacle. Fondness curls around his heart as he listens, and blooms as Keith repeats his mantra back to him, tells Shiro how different his life would be without him.

Right above the glowing wound in his side, Shiro feels something tingle and he wonders.

Later, after Shiro’s been tossed around by alien creatures and Keith saves him by piloting Black, Shiro feels the same tingling sensation just over his heart as he looks at the way the firelight gilds all of Keith’s sharp edges. He wouldn’t mind dying here if this was the view he had, he thinks.

Later still, when Shiro brushes off Coran and Allura to get himself into a podsuit in private, he lets out a humorless laugh when he looks down and sees two buds in the spots that tingled earlier. He shouldn’t be surprised, but he kind of is.

Of course it’s Keith. It’s always been Keith. The timing matches perfectly from when they started hanging out and the buds started to appear. No wonder Adam hadn’t been welcoming to Keith.

Shiro presses reverent fingers to the new bud on his side.  _ Keith _ put it there. Keith who has always been so careful to not let anyone see his vines, who tries to keep everyone at arm's length so he doesn’t get hurt but has let Shiro in close time and time again.

A thousand moments with Keith flash through Shiro’s mind and it’s impossible to miss now that he’s opened his eyes.

He’s in love with his best friend. He’s in love with Keith.

The bud beneath his fingers blooms; confirmation writ in a flower the color of desert twilight and Keith’s eyes.

Shiro’s done waiting. He’s hoped to see flowers on his skin his whole life, no matter how much he told himself it didn’t matter, or that he didn’t have time to worry about finding his soulmate when he was on a limited clock anyways. This is  _ Keith _ and he’s  _ here _ and Shiro loves him.

The podsuit is only half zipped as he stumbles out of the changing room, intent on going to find Keith.

“Shiro!” Allura shouts in alarm as she rushes towards him. He can only guess how wild-eyed he looks, frantic and still swaying on his feet from his injuries.

“I need to see Keith,” he says.

“You need to get in the pod,” Allura counters. “Keith can wait.”

Shiro shakes his head. “No, I need to see him before I get in the pod. All due respect, but this isn’t something that can wait.”

Allura raises an eyebrow, unimpressed. “Unless it is a matter of life or death, it can wait. That wound in your side and your other injuries cannot.”

Pain lances through him as if to accentuate her point.

“Fine,” Shiro says through gritted teeth. He’s learned how to pick his battles and maybe it’ll be better to talk to Keith when Shiro isn’t feeling like a feather could knock him sideways. “Will you tell him I’d like to talk to him when I get out? And that it’s nothing bad?” He doesn’t want to leave Keith drowning in anxiety while Shiro’s healing in the pod, but he does want to see him immediately when he’s released.

“I’ll make sure he knows,” Allura tells him. “Now please finish getting into your suit and then into the pod. Coran readied it for you before he left to check on the Castle.”

Shiro blushes as he finishes zipping up his suit. He enters the pod and watches as Allura steps closer to activate the healing program. Before the door closes, he can’t help but remind her to tell Keith he needs to see him.

Allura’s worried and somehow indulgent expression is the last thing he sees before the healing pod activates.

*

Keith fidgets with the cuff of his jacket as he waits for the pod to release Shiro. It’s been hours since Allura found him and explained that Shiro wanted to talk to him, wanted to see him, when he got out. She told him that Shiro said it was nothing bad, but Keith can’t help but worry.

He sneaks his fingers beneath his jacket to press against the bloom that stubbornly lives on his forearm. Most of his flowers have bloomed on his shoulders or his torso and move around with his vines, but this one bloomed on his forearm and seems to have made a home there. It’s a good thing everyone thinks he’s weird about keeping a jacket on at all times anyways or his secret would be out.

Flowers have only continued to bloom since he’s found himself in space with Shiro. Not a single one of them has had the decency to wither and die like a normal soulflower does in time. 

They’re all there, from the first one that bloomed in the desert to the one that burst forth on his side when they were stranded on that planet together earlier. A veritable garden of purple blooms painted across his skin, memorializing his love for Shiro.

The infirmary is too still, too quiet; the only sounds the slight humming of the pod containing Shiro and Keith’s own breathing and movements. The others had offered to stay with him for a while, but he’d turned them down, preferring to face whatever it is Shiro has to say without an audience. 

It’s also warm, unlike Earth hospitals which always seem freezing to Keith. He wishes he could take off his jacket but he doesn’t want to risk exposing his soulvines and their flowers when he’s not wearing long sleeves. So he just fidgets and waits.

With the anxiety roiling in the pit of his stomach, it feels like an eternity before the low hiss of the pod opening slices through the quiet room.

Keith rushes forward and catches Shiro when he stumbles forward out of the pod.

“Easy there, big guy,” he says quietly. “How are you feeling?”

“Less like death is looming right behind me,” Shiro replies, voice hoarse. 

Keith’s grip on him tightens involuntarily. 

“Hey, sorry. Didn’t mean to joke,” Shiro soothes. “I’m feeling a lot better, Keith. I promise.”

“Good. You want to sit?”

Shiro nods. Keith leads them to the inset benches lining the room and gently helps Shiro sit.

He lets Shiro relax for a minute, knowing the fuzz from being in the healing pod is tough to shake sometimes, before he prompts Shiro. “So, what were you wanting to talk about? Allura said you were pretty insistent that you wanted to see me before you went in the pod.”

Some complicated emotion that Keith can’t even begin to parse passes over Shiro’s face. Shiro reaches for his own side, right around where the wound from the witch had been.

“Shiro? Does it still hurt?”

“I need to show you something,” Shiro says, a thread of determination twining through his words, like he had to steel himself to say them.

It does nothing to help Keith’s anxiety. Nor does Shiro reaching for the podsuit zipper and starting to tug it down.

“Shiro?”

“Help me?” Shiro asks, twisting to try and pull the zipper lower on his back.

Keith reaches for the zipper tab with shaking fingers and pulls it down to the small of Shiro’s back, trying not to steal a look at the skin being revealed and any glimpse it may offer of Shiro’s soulvines.

But then Shiro starts shrugging the white material off his shoulders and down his arms. Keith slams his eyes shut. “Shiro?”

He only gets the rustle of the suit as response for a second then metal fingers caress his cheek and Keith thinks he must be dreaming. “Keith, look at me. Please? I need to show you.”

Keith bites down on his bottom lip and opens his eyes, bracing himself for disappointment even as he carefully keeps his eyes locked on Shiro’s face.

“Keith,” Shiro says gently, his eyes shining with something like hope. “Look. Please.”

“Okay,” he breathes out. He lets his eyes trail down the strong line of Shiro’s neck and freezes when he sees the bud that is resting on his collarbone. It’s familiar. So is the thorny vine it’s growing from.

They’re the same as his.

His eyes fly back up to Shiro’s. “You…” he starts, but he’s unable to get more words out.

Shiro smiles self-consciously and moves to stroke the flower on his side. Keith hadn’t even seen it. It matches his exactly and is more beautiful on Shiro’s skin than he ever dared to imagine. 

“It bloomed today,” Shiro says. “Or yesterday, I’m not actually sure how long I was in the pod. But I was thinking about you and it bloomed and I tried to come see you right away but…”

Keith reaches out without thinking, fingertips skimming across warm skin and purple petals. Shiro cuts off with an indrawn breath and Keith freezes.

“Sorry, I should’ve asked,” he says, drawing back. His cheeks feel like they’re on fire.

“No, you can touch. I want you to,” Shiro says, smiling shyly. “You’re my soulmate, Keith. I never thought I’d find…”

Keith presses his palm flat against the flower on Shiro’s skin. “Of course you’d find your soulmate,” he says firmly. “I’ll always find you.”

He watches in wonder as a bud along the left side of Shiro’s ribcage unfurls into a full bloom.

“I don’t know if you…” Shiro worries at his bottom lip, pausing as he obviously thinks over his words. “I don’t know if your flowers are even blooming yet but…”

The fact that Shiro has to ask if Keith loves him strikes Keith as some sort of tragedy and he can’t help but huff out some aborted laugh in response.

“Shiro, why do you think I always have my jacket on?” he asks gently.

“You’re attached to it,” Shiro answers automatically.

“That and I needed to hide the flowers,” Keith says. He pushes up the sleeve he’d been fiddling with earlier, exposing the bloom on his forearm. “This one’s been here since right after I stole you from the Garrison.”

Shiro’s fingers hover right over Keith’s skin and Keith presses up into them, wanting the contact.

It takes a moment for Keith’s words to sink in for Shiro. “That long?” He whispers, searching Keith’s face. “You never said anything.”

Keith’s sure his smile has to contain shards of his past grief, but he offers it regardless. Shiro is his soulmate and that means he gets to know all the parts of Keith’s soul, even the broken bits. “How could I? I was just a scrawny cadet with nothing to offer and you were my only friend. I wasn’t going to say anything that might make things weird.”

“Keith…” Shiro palm is warm and heavy against Keith’s flower and it reminds him of the first one blooming under the same weight.

“You had Adam and I knew soulvines can be a one-sided thing or unimportant to people.”

Shiro’s eyes go wide. “ _ That _ long? Keith…”

“Let me show you,” Keith says. He reluctantly pulls away from Shiro’s touch and stands to strip off his jacket. He hears Shiro’s intake of breath as a few more blooms are revealed. Keith steels himself and then pulls his shirt off, revealing the full extent of the garden splashed onto his skin.

His torso is a thicket of thorn-covered vines and silver-green leaves and bold purple flowers and buds. It’s a shouted declaration of how he feels and how long he’s felt it. He turns in a slow circle so Shiro can see that the flowers continue onto his back as well.

“You really…” Shiro trails off, unable to finish his thought as his eyes flick from Keith’s flowers to his face and back again.

“Of course, Shiro. How could I not love you?” Keith whispers. It feels like he’s cracked his chest open for Shiro to see.

The words leave his mouth and Shiro gasps as the bud over his heart bursts open, the final confirmation of what they both already know.

Shiro struggles to his feet, pod suit hanging off his hips now, and pulls Keith into a fierce hug, burying his face in Keith’s hair.

“I’m sorry I made you wait so long.” His hand traces the vines on Keith’s back in sweeping motions.

“You’ll just have to catch up to me this time,” Keith replies. He sneaks a hand between them to press over Shiro’s heart and the new bloom there.

“I will, I promise.” Shiro whispers. He pulls away just enough to look Keith in the eyes. “I love you.”

The feeling of the stalwart bud over Keith’s heart finally blooming is almost eclipsed by the bliss of Shiro leaning down to kiss him as soon as the words leave his lips.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on twitter at [twitter](https://twitter.com/LionessNapping) if that's your jam!
> 
> also [check out Star-Crossed and download the free pdf zine](https://twitter.com/sheithsoulmate) for amazing sheith soulmate content!
> 
> [and don't forget to check out the gorgeous art SueMaryRakocy did as well!!](https://twitter.com/SueMaryRakocy/status/1256708667342229504?s=20)


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